Global productive flows in health: elements for building a map of health industrial complexes in the world

Abstract

The article is based on the assumption that productive spatial circuits have global dynamics, as stated by Milton Santos (1988), built by the articulation between places and regions of the different socio-spatial formations that make up the current world system. This cross-border dynamic is established by the imposition of the hegemonic temporalities of global agents, specifically those that use instrumental simultaneity for the purposes of capitalist accumulation. In industrial production, this spatial practice of companies is achieved, among other ways, through the exchange of productive inputs between countries that have the same branches of industry, and here we are dealing with those that make up the health industrial complex. It is by analyzing these flows of productive inputs and finished products that we can create indicators and estimate the countries that own these complexes.